


Tell Me (are you still hurting?)

by collieflower



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: (on the same person), Alternate Universe - High School, Bev and Stan are both in love with Bill and he has no idea, F/M, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Pining, Prom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 02:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21129281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collieflower/pseuds/collieflower
Summary: “So now we’re down to five,” Mike said. “Eddie’s home, and Bill is…”“Gonna get eaten by the monster between Sally Nellins’s legs!” Richie yelled, much too loud for the school parking lot, where straggling prom-goers came out for a quick cigarette or five.“Beep beep, Richie,” Stan said. Mike reached for the cigarette, and he handed it over easily. Bev lit another as Stan wrapped his arm around her shoulders.She was wrapped in his jacket. She’d given him a little smirk before they left.Gonna be a gentleman like Big Bill?she asked, eyebrows jumping like they were playing make-believe, and she was the mommy, he the daddy in their little world that was just theirs.Come on, give me your jacket, dear.





	Tell Me (are you still hurting?)

Bev’s breath was hot in Stan’s ear, fanning against his temple and cupping the shell of his ear like it was something to be cherished.

“He looks so handsome,” it was almost like she was talking to herself, musing things about how lovely Mr. Denbrough’s suit jacket fit Bill, and how much she wanted to kiss him. She said it just loud enough for Stan to hear, just between them, as they swayed into each other during the slow songs.

She took the lead, slowly twisting them around until Stan could catch a glimpse.

Bill was dancing with Sally Nellins. His face was full of her permed curly hair as they danced cheek to cheek, pressed much too close for Stan’s taste or liking. He wondered if he and Beverly looked the same, or if one could read their intentions by the line of Stan’s shoulders, how Beverly’s hand stayed faithfully where it was supposed to, not sliding as he supposed it should for a teenager at her junior prom.

He wondered if they looked like their attention was anywhere but each other.

They danced like they had many times, in their clubhouse, in the barrens, and in grocery store parking lots. It was different than how Stan danced with the boys. Closer, safer. He didn’t have to hide from foreign eyes when he was in her arms.

He just had to hide his straying eyes.

Bev fit snugly against him, and he was nearly able to prop his chin up on the top of her head. Instead, she tucked her cheek into the crook of his neck, pressing the faintest kiss to his throat.

“He looks so awkward,” Stan murmured to her. Bill’s hands were fidgeting, never knowing quite where to settle. Sally shuffled after his steps, but they weren’t always very sure.

“It’s because he likes her,” Bev replied. Her hands drifted up his arms, and she pulled back to look at him, cupping the back of his neck. “Haven’t you ever had butterflies around a girl, Stanley?” she teased.

He couldn’t help his flush, or how his eyes jumped from her, to Bill, and back again. She smiled at him, her eyes warm. She held his face as she kissed him — it was a little thing, almost pure.

Stan fluttered his eyes open, and he smiled at her.

“This isn’t so bad,” she told him.

Stan frowned. “I never said it was.”

“Well, sometimes a girl has to trust her intuition.” She leaned back into him. “What’s he doing now?”

“She’s whispering in his ear,” he informed her dutifully. “I think he’s going to leave with her.”

Bev laughed. Stan felt it against his neck more than he heard it. “Of course he is.” It was obvious. Of course. Big Bill had a curfew of one thirty am, and he was going to use every second of it. He was going to show Sally Nellins a good time. They’d hadn’t been dating long, but that’s what’s expected, right?

Stan’s eyes scanned around the room, anything to call away from Bill and Sally.

Bill and Sally. They sounded like a pair destined to buy a house together at the ripe age of twenty-four. Three kids, and a border collie by thirty-three. Christmas at the Denbroughs, and Thanksgiving and Easter with the Nellinses. He’ll have a respectable job, and she’ll stay home with the kids.

It didn’t seem fitting for the likes of Bill. Stan tried to think of what he would be like, older and graying. He found that he could come up with nothing. He could only see how Bill was now, youthful and bright. With a sharp mind only ever slowed by his knotted tongue.

“She’s laughing,” she told him quietly, voice enraptured. “She pulled that little curl in front of his face, and now _ he’s _ laughing. He took off his blazer to give to her, and they’re leaving.” Her fingertips tapped a little rhythm into his shoulder blade.

Ben and Mike were dancing together — well, as together as the two of them could dance in a place like this. The song was one of the new poppy ones Stan’s father hated, and Stan and Bev were suddenly out of place. They swayed in place like a couple of mournful fools while others danced around them, shaking out their hair and tossing arms up in the air.

Stan pulled away, his hands on her hips. “Want to find Richie and dance?” he asked. Her thoughtful look melted into a little smile, and she nodded.

So they danced, molding back in with their Losers, dancing until they were blue in the face, and Bevvie had to slip her heels off and hold them hooked in her fingers.

“Where the _ fuck _ is Billiam?!” Richie demanded, three sheets to the wind as they stumbled out the side doors of the gymnasium. Mike propped him up with Richie’s arm over his shoulders, his arm hooked up around his waist.

“Left with Sally,” Ben piped up from the other side of Stan. He was rosy, flushed with sneaked alcohol and the high of the night. “I saw them leave earlier.” Stan nodded along. Bev pulled a cigarette out of her clutch.

Stan held Bev’s heels, his index and middle fingers hooked into the backs of them. She lit her cigarette and took a pull before handing it down the line to Stan. He wondered if her feet hurt worse in the shoes than they must have on the rough asphalt of the parking lot.

It must have been at least bearable. After all, she had yet to jump on one of their backs, demanding they carry her home as she had done _ oh _, so many times before.

Richie scoffed deep in his throat. He stumbled over a crack in the pavement, and Mike jerked him up against him so he wouldn’t fall. “Fuckin’ _ women _, amiright, fellas?”

“And Bev,” Ben piped up.

“Oh shit, yeah, and Bev. Amiright, fellas and Bev?”

“That’s right, Richie,” Bev agreed. There was a private bitterness layered in her voice. Something between her and Bill and Stan. Stan sighed out smoke, ignoring how it stung his eyes.

“So now we’re down to five,” Mike said. “Eddie’s home, and Bill is…”

“Gonna get eaten by the monster between Sally Nellins’s legs!” Richie yelled, much too loud for the school parking lot, where straggling prom-goers came out for a quick cigarette or five.

“Beep beep, Richie,” Stan said. Mike reached for the cigarette, and he handed it over easily. Bev lit another as Stan wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

She was wrapped in his jacket. She’d given him a little smirk before they left. _ Gonna be a gentleman like Big Bill? _ she asked, eyebrows jumping like they were playing make-believe, and she was the mommy, he the daddy in their little world that was just theirs. _ Come on, give me your jacket, dear _.

“Just sayin’ what we’re all a’thinkin’,” Richie told him, a furrow between his brows. “Can’t blame me for saying the truth.”

“He likes her.” Bev leaned her head against Stan. “Haven’t you ever liked anyone, Richie?”

Richie didn’t reply. None of them expected him to.

They made it to Mike’s old truck at an even pace. Stan and Bev were up against the cab, Richie was stuffed in the cab with the door swinging wide open. He was laying across the seat with his legs sticking out the door, looking reminiscent of a dead body. They’d come half in Bill’s car. There wasn’t going to be enough seats for them all in Mike’s truck, so they were going to have to cram.

If worse came to worse, Stan’s house was nine blocks away, and he and Bev were sober enough to make the trek. Ben hadn’t had _ so _ much that he couldn’t help Mike wrestle Richie back home.

“If Bill wants to get laid, let him get laid,” Mike piped up suddenly, cutting through a random ramble of Richie’s. He was talking about beavers, maybe, Stan thought. He wasn’t really paying attention, more focused on the warmth of Bev beside him, and the smoke in his lungs.

“I don’t think we could stop him if we wanted to,” Bev pointed out.

Mike just shook his head. “Let’s go get Eddie.”

Richie flung up, nearly pitching himself out of the truck. He barely caught himself on the doorframe. “Le’s do it,” he slurred. “He’s probably so sad he di’nt get tuh come, too.”

“Or relieved that he got out of dancing with you,” Stan pitched in. Richie laughed loudly, shocking like a shock of cold air after a hot shower.

“We could sneak him out his window,” Ben offered.

“To the clubhouse?” Bev asked, a grin in her voice.

Mike nodded, his eyes lighting up.

“To the clubhouse!” Richie chorused. “Fuck Bill!”

Stan snorted, but withheld comment. A glance down to Beverly proved that she was thinking the same thing. _ If only, if only _.

What a pair of chums they made. He kissed her, holding her chin gently. She tasted like cinnamon and the shitty punch and tobacco.

They kissed each other, trying not to remember that how they wished the other was someone else entirely.

**Author's Note:**

> i love writing fics that are niche as _HELL_
> 
> here's my [tumblr](https://littlemumman.tumblr.com/)


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